Gyrotate in Review – Finger Flicking Fun

Gyrotate is a puzzle game where you must match shapes – similar to PopCap’s Bejeweled 2. You still have a grid where you swap shapes around to match them, but in Gyrotate the clue is in the name. To match, you must rotate sections of the board so the pieces line up. For this reason, the gameplay mechanic isn’t quite as fast-paced and you must be more accurate with your moves in order to get the tiles where you need them to be. Unlike Bejeweled though, you must match four or more tiles in Gyrotate. Feel free to discuss this review of Gyrotate in our forums.

In each level you have a set amount of colours you must match – for example 5 of the yellow shapes, 5 of the orange, red, white, etc. Once you’ve completed the requirements for the level, you’ll progress to the next one. You’re timed, so there’s no resting on your laurels! You do get three lives though, so if you run out of time, you get a chance to redeem yourself, rather than starting from the beginning. Also, if you get to the stage where there are no more moves on the board, this is detected and it is refreshed instantly. Naturally, things get progressively more difficult as you advance through the game so it’s a challenge to see how far you can get before all your lives run out and it’s Game Over!

There are three difficulty levels in the game, so you can start off easy if you like. If, however, you’re a total whiz at this kind of game, then feel free to set it up to the most difficult level and see how you get on! Added extras to spice up the gameplay include locks, bombs and clocks. Hints are available, but use them sparingly as you might find you’ve run out when you crucially need one.

A cool feature is that if you’re already playing music through your device when entering the game, this will be detected and Gyrotate’s music will be turned off. Also, if it’s your cup of tea, you can also check out the statistics of your gameplay. Find out how long you’ve been playing, how many matches you’ve made and much more!

Gyrotate actually saved itself from a lower score in this review by releasing an update just before I started writing up my review, so I had to go back, look at the changes and reassess. The new features are:

OpenFeint support – which also includes 40 achievements to be collected. This adds a whole new dimension to the game – making you more likely to play again and again so you can bag your trophies and show your high score off to your friends.

Worldwide leaderboards – think you’re good at Gyrotate? Find out just how good by comparing your score worldwide!

Select music from your iTunes library – great if you’re not a huge lover of the App’s music (which, for the record, isn’t bad).

3 lives per game – decreases your chances of getting fed up with the difficulty of the game. You’re more likely to keep playing if you can progress further without getting a Game Over.

Highlight layer option – a very valuable addition. Because the layers you have to rotate in the game are quite narrow, it’s quite easy to slide the wrong one by mistake, costing you valuable time. Highlighting the layers just makes things more transparent and user friendly.

Additional stats are now tracked – ideal for those of you that love statistics!

Overall, GoosTrix’s Gyrotate is an enjoyable App. Match 3 puzzlers will like it more than most, and at this price you can’t grumble.